Russia's A Cuddly Bear In The Energy War

Lisa Buckingham, the Financial Mail editor writes that the challenges that Shell is facing in the Sakhalin-2 project are great, but nothing new. Muddling through with hostile political regimes is day-to-day stuff for oil giants. The expropriation of assets is, historically, par for the course. Remember, for example, that BP had a goodly part of its business swiped by Iran.

As BP's chief executive, Lord Browne, remarked when discussing the difficulties of doing business in Russia, if not there then the alternative was violent, war-ravaged Africa. Looked at from this perspective, Russia appears eminently hospitable.
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